The re­tailer re­moved the T-shirt — which fea­tured a large yel­low star adorned with the word “sher­iff”— from its web­site on Wed­nes­day, just hours af­ter it went on sale on­line.

A spokesman for In­di­tex, which owns Zara, said: “The gar­ment was in­spired by the clas­sic Western films, but we now recog­nise that the de­sign could be seen as in­sen­si­tive and apol­o­gise sin­cerely for any of­fence caused to our cus­tomers.”

The £10.99 T-shirt was de­signed for chil­dren up to three-years-old.

Com­mu­nal groups con­demned the de­sign, with a World Jewish Congress spokesman de­scrib­ing it “rem­i­nis­cent of the Holo­caust.

“The Zara ver­sion sported hor­i­zon­tal rather than ver­ti­cal stripes. How­ever the shirt bore a large yel­low star in the ex­act place where Nazis forced Jews to wear the star of David.”

Gil­lian Walnes, ex­ec­u­tive direc­tor of the Anne Frank Trust UK, said: “The T-shirt is dis­taste­ful. Pure ig­no­rance can be cited as an ex­cuse but some­one should have picked this up.

“I am pleased that once the faux-pas was seen, the T-shirt was im­me­di­ately with­drawn.”

Mark Gard­ner, direc­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tions at the Com­mu­nity Se­cu­rity Trust, said: “What­ever Zara’s intention, many peo­ple will be re­ally shocked that this could ever have made it past the de­sign stage.”

A spokesman for the Board of Deputies said: “We ac­knowl­edge that Zara have apol­o­gised but this er­ror has caused enor­mous hurt in the Jewish com­mu­nity. We urge Zara to take far greater care.”

Jon Ben­jamin, the for­mer Board of Deputies chief ex­ec­u­tive, tweeted: “Made in Tur­key, but just thought­less and no qual­ity con­trol at Zara. Shows a lack of ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness.”

This is not the first time the brand has come un­der fire. In 2007, Zara with­drew a line of hand­bags from its UK stores be­cause they were adorned with swastikas.